The Sociomedical Institute ZRC SAZU employs researchers from various scientific disciplines, which is the advantage in implementing the institute’s thematic programme about multidisciplinary aspects of population dynamics and mental health. Research work within the national and international research projects includes the topics from current social issues related to social repercussions of population dynamics (fertility, ageing and migration), mental health (mood disorders, stress at the workplace, functional and cognitive remediation, long-term care) and family farming (developmental strategies, gender and intergenerational relationships). These particular topics are situated in the research field of social sciences, humanities and medical sciences, however, the crossing of disciplinary borders has become the Institute’s practice. The Sociomedical Institute ZRC SAZU combines knowledge and research orientations of sociology, social anthropology and medical and health psychology.

The Institute of Medical Sciences ZRC SAZU (now, the Sociomedical Institute) was established in November 19, 1981 when the Assembly of Slovenian Academy of Arts and Sciences set up its scientific-research organization. Although it initially existed only de jure, the Institute organised a series of discussions addressing controversial issues in the studies of medicine and health care. In 1994, the academics Dr. Lidija Andolšek Jeras, Dr. Lev Miličinski and Dr. Andrej Župančič prepared a study entitled Transformation of the Institute of Medical Sciences ZRC SAZU and delivered it to the then Ministry of Sciences and Technology. The study identified fertility behaviour (especially reproductive health) and suicide of the inhabitants of Slovenia as priority research areas. The research program (1999-2003) entitled Fertility Behaviour of Slovenians could be seen as a result and a realisation of that effort.

Several changes in the personnel structure of the Institute have taken place since 1999. As a result, the Institute’s research orientation has expanded to the fields of sociology, social anthropology, psychology, neurobiology, and social work. Distinctive characteristic of the Institute has become increasingly mirrored in its multidisciplinary approach, and finally, led to renaming of the Institute to the Sociomedical Institute in 2005. The study of social phenomena, such as low fertility, aging of the population, migration, auto-and hetero-aggressive behavioural patterns and substance abuse, has been set in a wide spectrum of research areas covering the fields of social sciences, humanities and medical sciences. On the one hand, these research areas have increasingly referred to the sociological and social-anthropological interpretation of classical demographic models and concepts, social-anthropological theory of ethnicity and nationalism, and on the other hand, to the personality, psychosocial, neuropsychological and neurobiological theories of social behaviour.

FORMER EMPLOYEES

Dunja Obersnel Kveder, MA: 1 November 1997−17 September 2000

Barbara Rojnik, Ph.D.: 15 April 1998−30 November 2000

Irena Rožman, Ph.D.: 1 June 2003−31 May 2004

Andrej Kveder, Ph.D.: 1 November 1998−31 May 2005

Urška Rajgelj, Ph.D.: 1 November 2001−30 June 2007 and 10 September 2007−31 January 2008